Red Queen
Summary (no spoilers) Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood---those with Red and those with Silver. Mare is a red-blooded civilian, and she is destined to serve the amazing Silver Elite, who's spectacular abilities make them gods. Mare steals what she can, but when her best friend Kilorn Warren is conscripted to a pointless war, she does everything she can to prevent it. But when she meets a strange man who gives her a silver coin and a job as a servant, she shows her supernatural ability, just like the Silvers. Except her blood is red. The king and queen hide this impossibility by posing her as a long-lost silver, daughter to a lost war hero, Mareena Titanos. She is betrothed to Maven Calore, and is forced into a minefield of silver princesses, where one wrong turn will get her killed. She risks it even further by aiding the Scarlet Guard, a red rebellion. Brother turns against brother, and Mare against herself. Plot (spoilers!!!) The book starts by showing the world divided by Red and Silver blood, where the Silvers have special abilities that practically make them gods, and the Reds are made to serve the Silvers. Mare Barrow and the rest of her family live in the Stilts, a red village. Only few Reds get apprenticeships, but most reds are conscripted into a war against the Lakelands, where they will most likely die in the Choke. Mare's brothers, Bree, Tramy, and Shade have all been conscripted, and Mare is next. Only Mare's little sister Gisa is apprenticed. When Mare's lifelong friend Kilorn Warren is conscripted, although, she asks her friend Will to help smuggle them out. Will brings them to Diana Farley, a member of the Scarlet Guard. Farley says she will smuggle them out for two thousand crowns. Mare knows that the only way she will ever obtain two thousands crowns is if she steals from the Silvers themselves. So Mare gets her sister Gisa's help, and Gisa lets her into the Grand Garden, where she goes to sell embroidery. Mare pickpockets Silvers there, but when the Scarlet Guard bombs Archeon, the Silvers go into a riot, attacking reds and demanding what they know of the Scarlet Guard. This meant that Mare couldn't risk stealing from anymore Silvers, so in their rush Gisa tries to pickpocket one Silver, but ends up getting her hand broken instead. This meant that Gisa could not longer provide her sewing skills and pay for the family no more. Mare refuses to give up, though, and goes to a tavern where she pickpockets many Silvers. But when she tries to pickpocket one man, he catches her. But instead of turning her over to the officers, he calls her a "thief." She replies with. "Obviously." Then he asks her why she was stealing from him, and she ends up breaking down to him about her miserable life. The man says he feels bad for her, and gives a silver coin after he walks her back to her house. The next day an officer comes to Mare's house and says she is to come with them and serve as a servant to the Silvers. They bring her to the castle, and she finds out that man is Tiberias Calore VII, the soon to be crowned king. And he got her a job as a servant. She serves at Queenstrial, a competition where ladies compete to become the future queen and marry Tiberias, or Cal. But when one competitor, Evangeline Samos, competes, she uses her ability to tip the box that Mare was in and throws her over the edge, onto a lightning net. Instead of being burnt to a crisp, Mare falls through the net and into the arena. Evangeline uses her magnetic ability to throw spikes at Mare, but Mare obliterates it with a bolt of lightning that comes from her hands. Mare runs from the arena, but Cal ends up capturing her and knocking her out. The king and queen lie to everyone, saying that Mare is the long lost daughter of Lord Ethan Titanos, a fallen general of the Iron Legion, Mareena Titanos. She is betrothed to Cal's half brother, Maven Calore, and now a princess. The king thinks she will be able to stop the red rebellion by making speeches on how the Silvers are kind to Reds. She trains with the other Silvers, and acts as one of them. One night, Cal helps her sneak out and go back to her family. She doesn't tell her family about her new ability, but after they reveal to her that Shade had died, she goes into a rage and shows them her power. On the way back, she goes and finds Farley, and joins the Scarlet Guard along with Maven and Kilorn, who also join later on. Mare and Maven help Farley perform a shooting on a few Silvers during a royal ball one night, but after an unknown bomb goes off, things get chaotic and everything goes downhill. Farley, Kilorn, and two other Scarlet Guard agents named Walsh and Tristan are all captured. Farley is tortured for information but she says nothing. Mare and Maven cannot help, otherwise their position will be revealed. But Mare gets Julian, her mentor's help, since he is a singer and can control minds, and they help them escape custody. But Tristan is killed in Ptolemus Samos's rage. Julian had to leave after, knowing that he will be executed after they found out that he had helped, but before he gives Mare a list of Reds with abilities, like her, and says that her brother was one too. She knows this is why he was killed in the war. Farley manages to meet back up with Mare and Maven, and bring them to an irradiated place on a train. But turns out the place doesn't have radiation, but the technology that the Scarlet Guard had made it seem like it does. The place is a city that the Scarlet Guard and any other Reds live in. There, Mare tells her about the list and that they could recruit more like her to make an army, but Farley explains to her with the rewards building up for them, that they couldn't really trust anybody to help them. At the meeting. Maven says that they could force the king to surrender, since if the king falls the reds have won. Mare and Farley rebuke him and remind him about all the guards, but he says that Mare could win Cal over since he is in love with her. And then Cal would convince his army to step away and let the Scarlet Guard win. So they sneak in and blow up the bridge leading up to the castle. Cal is one of the officers running up to intercept them, and so Mare tells him to choose her, and a better world. And she even believes half of what she is saying. But Cal doesn't believe her, and realizes she is with the Guard, and is responsible for many deaths. He turns her and Maven over to the king and queen. But Queen Elara wants to save her son, Maven, since Cal's mother Queen Coriane died and Elara and the king had Maven. So Elara uses her powers to disable the king and Cal, and forces Cal to chop his father's head off. Mare realizes this had been Maven's plan all along to the throne, and now he is to be king since Cal is seen as a traitor and Mare a rebel. Maven locks Cal and Mare up, but then in his haste tries to beg Mare to accept him again, when he realizes that Mare actually and truthfully loved him. Cal and Mare are to be executed in the Bowl of Bones, where Cal and Mare will have to fight some of the best recruits in the kingdom. Including Cal's ex-fiance Evangeline Samos. And an Arven guard, a person who can silence other's abilities, silences Mare so she can't use her powers. Maven tells everyone Mare is just a normal Red who used a machine to use her lightning, instead of revealing to everyone Mare is red but has powers. So Mare and Cal fight against five other silvers, and are losing badly. But when Mare tricks one of her opponents, a Rhambos strongarm, to throw a spear at her, she steps aside and the spear impaled the Arven guard instead. When Mare gets her power back, Maven evacuates the crowd as Mare and Cal defeat all their opponents. Evangeline and her older brother Ptolemus both flee. Then Maven sends in officers to defeat Mare and Cal, with guns and armor, but Mare summons a lightning storm to kill them and buy them time to run. But when she tires out, Maven orders the guards to shoot them, but instead all the guards are shot by people behind them, and then hands grab Mare and Cal and pull them away. Mare wakes up on another train with the Scarlet Guard, and finds that Shade is on the train, alive and well. He shows her his special ability, and he is a Teleporter. He is a Newblood like Mare. Cal is also on the train, but he is tied up, and Farley refuses to let him go because he is a Silver and almost got everyone killed. But Cal doesn't just burn through the rope and escape, because he wants to kill Maven just as much as Mare does.